NIC KORAY & BAND - "TRAVELLER"
"Every single moment, every tiny bit of life is part of a journey--like it or not--this is, what fascinates me so much. Wherever you go, wherever you hide you ARE part of THE journey, moving forward through space and time, through the countryside, along the edges of your mind, into the corners of your heart, from face to face, from place to place, from highway to hiding places, whatever.
I could go on like this for ages. At any given moment -each and everyone of us is a TRAVELLER.That drives me mad, makes me happy and drives me mad again!"
Thats what Nic Koray said, when I asked her why she wanted to call the new album TRAVELLER.
I knew that her life had been full of travelling right from the beginning. Born in Turkey, her parents soon split up, making Nic a baby traveller. The Journey had begun as she started travelling to and fro between Turkey and Germany, where she had settled down with her mother.
While on her stays in Turkey she lived on her fathers big boat, and father and daughter used to stay off shore, cross the sea, ride the waves, stumbling across the sandy beaches of lonely islands and being lost and safe, together and torn, smiling on a sad occasion--her words.
As she grew older her visits to Turkey became more infrequent, but by now a new phase of the Journey had begun: music. She started singing and became the singer of YOUR FINEST DROPS, a German band which against the odds were successful, supporting the CRANBERRIES in 1997, winning the RUHRROCK Price 1998, releasing an album and touring. After the band split to personal reasons and a planned reunion in 2001 failed to take off, Nic helped out in several bands (e.g. LUNASTRIP) and joined some projects (e.g. IN CAMERA) but couldnt really make herself feel at home.
This basic musical homelessness combined with a very strong need to make music ("Music is alsways in me an I must let it out somehow--if not, Id burst!") made her start to learn guitar, drums and a tiny bit of the piano and then on to the field of songwriting.
"I dont even write the songs, you know, I just let them drop by, they fall from the sky, and I just have to pick them up again--thats it really." Anyway, her rich childhood experiences, the mixture of fear and fascination concerning bridging distances and of facing the haunting facts of being alive right now, right here, under these conditions, made her write songs that gather on the new album like vagabonds around a fire, and which come to creep into your heart, if you dare let them in that is.
Almost every song deals with various images of travelling, e.g. POSTCARD, TRAVELLER, HIGH SPIRITS, ANGEL, CAROLINAS TREE, WANDERING ANGUS, ABANDONED, BEGGAR&VAGABOND, CATCH A CLOUD . (further information>lyrics) . all mention it in some way, although were not always talking about conventional travels here.
Initially Nic started to share these songs with audiences playing acoustic gigs in 2005, accompanied by Victoria Schier on double bass and Andreas Düsener on drums, before her old partner in crime from YOUR FINEST DROPS, MIRKO ADDEN returned to lend a helping hand to produce the songs, adding drums and writing bass and piano lines, arrangements and the like.
The songs have turned out to be as fine yet subtle complex as Nic and Mirko wanted. They then set about putting a band together and finally found Andreas Wildenhain(guitars), Jörg Regner (electric and double bass) and Viktoria Schier(backing vocals, piano).
Now all aboard the TRAVELLER, theyre setting off for spreading good songs among the people and invite them on a journey thats taking place right now, in each and every moment, always.
Welcome on board!
